by Linda Howard
She shook her head. “You can’t carry me. It’s too far.”
“Don’t start being a pain in the ass,” he snapped. Patience wasn’t his strong suit—or his weak one, come to that. And the comment was fucking stupid, because when hadn’t she been a pain in the ass? “If you could walk at all, you wouldn’t have been crawling, and even if I help you, you can’t hop several miles in this terrain. I’ll repeat your two choices: on my back, or over my shoulder. Choose.”
Another flash of lightning made her flinch. She wiped a shaking hand across her face, and he realized again how close she was to the end of her rope. “Which one is easiest for you?” she finally asked, and the ease with which she gave in told him more than words ever would how much this night had taken out of her.
“Easy isn’t a factor. Never mind, I just made up your mind for you. We’ll start out with you over my shoulder, so I can keep my right hand free to carry the rifle. I want to be able to shoot if I need to. After we put some more distance between us and your camp, we’ll switch to piggyback and you can carry the rifle. Think you can stay awake to shoot if you have to?”
Her eyes were huge, dark hollows in her pale face. “Oh, yeah,” she said grimly. “I’ll stay awake.”
Chapter Fourteen
Dare pulled her upright and clamped an arm around her waist to hold her steady as she ground her teeth and worked through the surge of pain caused by blood going to her foot. When he could feel her relax a little he eased his grip, but kept her weight leaning against him; the way she was shaking, her balance was precarious even if she hadn’t been holding her right foot off the ground.
“Okay, here’s the way we’re going to do this.” He took the saddlebags from her and settled them over his left shoulder, with one bag hanging over his back and the other over his chest. The strap of her mud-caked rifle was hooked over his right shoulder. His own rifle was in his right hand. “You’re going over my left shoulder. Use your left arm to hook around my waist, and I’ll be using my left arm to steady you. Between the two of us, you should be fairly secure. I know you’re tired and cold and you want to rest, but what I need you to do is hold the flashlight in your right hand and shine it in front of me, so I can see where I’m going. Can you manage?”
He couldn’t really tell in the darkness, broken by the surreal flashes of light, but he thought she gave a faint, grim smile. “Hold a flashlight? Yeah … I can do that.”
It had been a dumb-ass question; a woman who had crawled down a mountain could definitely handle a flashlight. And at any other time she’d have pointed out to him what a dumb-ass question it was, but tonight she seemed to be passing up opportunities to chew his ass out. That almost worried him more than the situation they were in, because what if she had a head injury she hadn’t told him about?
Well, hell. Only one way to find out, and that was to ask. “Have you banged your head on anything?”
“No.”
And that was it. All he could surmise, then, was that she was holding everything back until after she was safe; after all, she wouldn’t want to alienate her rescuer, not when her general opinion of him was so low she’d expect him to leave her there if she said what she was thinking.
“Let’s get going, then. Here’s the flashlight.” As she took the light he bent down, put his shoulder into her midsection, wrapped his left arm around her thighs, and straightened, his movements fast and seamless. For a moment she was rigid, her arms braced on his back, then he felt her force herself to relax and let her torso lie against him. She hooked her left arm around his waist. If he hadn’t been wearing a slicker she could have grabbed hold of his belt, but as it was she had to use muscle power to keep herself anchored.
Pointing the flashlight at the ground, she switched it on and angled it so the beam was shining in front of him. “Is this okay?”
“Tilt it down a little more.”
Silently she obeyed, and the bright LED lights lit the ground at his feet. She braced the flashlight against his leg, and he began walking.
Hiking through mountainous terrain in a storm, in the dark, carrying another person, and without having a hand free for balance had to rank right up there with combat in the potential for getting hurt. If he hadn’t had the flashlight, he likely would have killed them both within the first half hour. Dare didn’t let himself think about whether or not the task he’d set himself was hard, didn’t let himself think about maybe finding an outcropping of rock and waiting out the storm. He and Angie had one big advantage, and that was that the guy who’d tried to kill her had no idea anyone else was nearby. He wouldn’t know about Dare’s camp, its location or even its existence. Dare wasn’t about to give up that advantage by hanging around.
Moreover, the storm was wiping out all trace of Dare’s tracks as soon as he made them. The farther he could get while it was still raining, the better.
Angie was on the skinny side, but the skinny was all muscle and she was heavier than she looked, plus she had at least ten, fifteen pounds packed into the saddlebags she’d been carrying. Still, he’d toted deer off this mountain that weighed more than she did, so he ignored the complications of weather, having to carry his rifle instead of slinging it by the strap on his shoulder, all the while trying not to jostle her ankle.
She was still too quiet, and that bothered him. He appreciated the lack of complaints, because dangling upside down over his shoulder couldn’t be comfortable, but she was too quiet. He’d have thought she was unconscious except for the tension he could feel in her body, and the fact that the flashlight remained in her hand instead of dropping to the ground.
After half an hour he asked, “You hanging in there?”
Her chest heaved a little; he could feel the movement against his back. “Uh … yeah. Literally.”
Had she laughed? He hadn’t meant to make a joke, but he was glad the question had come off as one. If she could laugh, she was okay.
On the other hand, she might have been gasping for breath.
She had been trembling and shivering, but the involuntary movements had stopped and he wondered if she was sliding into hypothermia. He plowed on for a few minutes, but when he saw a decent-sized boulder with a slight hollow on one side, he decided to make use of it. Stopping every half hour for a brief rest probably wasn’t a bad idea; it would keep him from making mistakes, and give him a chance to assess her condition.
“Let’s stop here for a minute,” he said, propping his rifle against the rock and gently easing her off his shoulder and down to the ground. He retrieved the rifle, then crowded into the small space with her and turned the flashlight so they had just a little bit of light. He wasn’t worried about the batteries going dead; LED lights lasted for months of normal use, and the batteries were new. He even had spares at the camp, just in case, but there was more than enough juice to get them there. Even if there wasn’t, Angie’s flashlight was in her saddlebags, so they had backup.
He sighed. Just being partially out of the rain was a huge relief. His boots were waterproof, but from the knees down his jeans were sopping wet and water had leaked down the inside of his boots. His socks weren’t completely soaked yet, but they soon would be.
His hands were cold, but not as cold as hers. He put his arm around her shoulders and tugged her in close, almost in his lap, then took her hands and folded them against his palms, tucking them against his neck. She made a small sound that could have been either a bitten-off protest or a hum of relief.
“You stopped shivering,” he said. “Are you warmer?”
A slow shake of her head.
Damn it. There wasn’t a lot he could do, no way in hell he could build a fire in this downpour even if he had a fire-starter kit on him, which he didn’t. There was a small camp heater at the cabin, which didn’t do him a hell of a lot of good right now.
Swiftly he unsnapped and unzipped his slicker, then did the same to hers. She didn’t protest, and when he got it open he saw why she was so cold. She was wearing a coa
t beneath the slicker, but the coat was wet through, and had been leaching her body heat away.
“Shit, we have to get you out of this,” he said, pushing the slicker down her arms.
She frowned, as if she couldn’t understand what he was doing, but didn’t protest. He didn’t have a lot of room to maneuver, and he banged his elbow against the rock; he cursed nonstop as he finished peeling her out of the slicker and the heavy coat. When that chore was finished, he had to put the slicker back on her. Then he unzipped his coat, pulled her across his lap in a half-lying position, and tucked her inside his open coat. Every stitch she had on was wet, and he caught his breath as water soaked from her clothes into his, but he pulled her even closer and did his best to wrap his coat and slicker over her, then covered them both with her wet coat.
That was the best he could do. It wasn’t the same as blankets and hot coffee and a fire, but maybe his body heat was enough to pull her back from the brink.
Her nose, buried against his neck, was as cold as a pup’s. He turned off the flashlight and sat in the dark with her, holding her as close as he could get her without stripping them both down to skin.
Ten minutes later, when she started shivering again, he felt grimly triumphant. He was shivering a little himself, but he wasn’t freezing, and when they started out again his physical effort would warm him up, as long as he didn’t push so hard he started sweating.
He checked his wristwatch, gave her another ten minutes. He’d do this every half hour: stop for a brief rest, get her warmed up a little, change positions. After this time she shouldn’t be as cold. The rest periods would keep him from getting stupid with fatigue, and changing positions would help keep both of them going.
“Time to saddle up,” he said when the ten minutes were up. “Piggyback this time. You ready?”
Reluctantly she sat up, but she was able to zip and snap her own slicker, and he helped her back into the wet coat. This time the coat went on the outside where it provided a barrier to the weather but wasn’t against her body. It wasn’t an ideal solution, but it would do.
They pulled up the hoods of their slickers, and Dare moved away from the shelter of the boulder into the heavy rain. After helping Angie up so she was balanced on her left foot, he knelt so she could climb onto his back.
They could do this.
They had to.
A touch of gray lit the sky to the east when Dare finally saw the cabin ahead. The darkness had been gradually fading for the past fifteen minutes, just enough that he could make out some details without the aid of the flashlight. The ferocious lightning and thunder had moved on, but the heavy rain hadn’t slacked off at all. The wind had blown rain against his face, down his neck, soaking into his clothes beneath the slicker. Angie had already been soaked. The oiled leather of the saddlebags had probably held up okay, but everything else, including his hat, was dripping; they might as well have swam here.
Angie was hanging over his shoulder again. They had changed position every time they stopped, but that was the position that seemed to be most comfortable for her, maybe because it required the least effort on her part.
The periodic stops had kept pulling her back from hypothermia, but each time she seemed to lose a little ground. Since the last stop she’d been just hanging there, limp and completely silent.
Two hours ago he’d decided they could relax their vigilance, at least as far as not needing to have the rifle instantly at the ready, and he’d been able to sling it on his shoulder and use both hands; he’d taken over carrying the flashlight, because Angie had begun drifting off and letting it drop. Each time she would startle awake and apologize, but the fact was she’d pushed herself almost as far as she could go.
He never would have thought it, but now he wished she’d light into him, giving him hell for everything he’d done wrong: for losing the horse, for not finding her sooner, for not making an appearance in her camp to let her clients know she wasn’t alone. The last two points wouldn’t be fair, but he didn’t care about fair right now, he just wanted her awake and spitting fire. He wanted her complaining about everything he did. He didn’t like it when she didn’t talk.
Keep them talking. He’d done that with wounded men, but Angie had stopped answering him a half-mile back. She was traumatized, hypothermic, possibly in shock. He’d forgone the last rest period, because getting her to shelter was more important than resting for ten minutes.
With nothing to distract him, he’d begun wondering about things he didn’t want to think about. The events she’d described were bad enough, but he couldn’t help thinking there might be more to the story, something she hadn’t told him. He and Harlan had talked about the dangers of a woman guiding two men, especially men like Davis and Krugman, the bastards.
Had she been raped? It didn’t make sense, not with the scenario she’d described, but then again he couldn’t be positive that her version of the incident had been a complete one. Was there something she hadn’t told him?
He hadn’t wanted to kill anyone for a long time, but at the moment he could cheerfully have put a bullet into Krugman.
All through the long trek he’d not only been watching for an armed man and a killer bear, he’d also been looking for his fucking horse. He’d hoped, for a while, that the buckskin would find its way back to him, or maybe to the cabin. Horses were herd animals; they didn’t like being alone. But there hadn’t been any sign of the animal, and though he could now see the building ahead, there still wasn’t.
Damn it all to hell, he might never find that damn horse. If it didn’t manage to find its way here—not likely, considering this was its first trip here, and it wasn’t familiar with the area—they’d have to walk off the mountain. He would, anyway. If Angie’s ankle was broken, she’d have to stay here while he fetched help. If the damn knuckle-brained horse hadn’t taken off, he’d have been able to use the sat phone to call for help.
Instead he was up here with a murderer, a killer bear, an injured woman, and no easy way out. The way things had gone to hell, he was surprised they hadn’t been struck by lightning; that was about the only thing that hadn’t happened. Of course, a lightning strike would have wiped away all his worries about the other stuff.
Dare was good at focusing. After allowing himself a brief respite by silently cursing at everything, he pulled his frustration back in and stuffed it away, so he could concentrate on what had to be done. Taking care of Angie was number one. Get her inside, get her dry and warm, check out her ankle—and any other injuries she hadn’t bothered to tell him about—and get her to eat. Survival always came down to basics. She needed medical attention, food, water, and sleep.
He couldn’t provide a hospital or a restaurant, but he did keep the basics on hand. Once she was taken care of, he’d make a plan for what came next.
“We’re almost there,” he said, jostling her a little to make her stir. “Are you okay?”
When she finally responded, her voice was thin and slurred. “You keep asking me that.”
“Yeah, well, you’re too fucking quiet.”
She mumbled something he didn’t catch.
“What?” he barked.
She lifted her head. He couldn’t see the motion, but he felt it, felt the shift of her weight. “I said, you curse too much.” Her voice was still weak, and she shook like a leaf, but she’d found the strength to criticize him.
He felt a little more cheerful. Things were looking up.
Chapter Fifteen
Dare stepped into the lower level of his cabin, out of the rain at last. He stopped, shuddering with relief, as he shone the flashlight around the stalls on the bottom floor, looking for any sign of disturbance. Everything was quiet, just as he’d left it. Only when he was certain that nothing else was in there did he close the door and throw the heavy latch, as glad as he’d ever been that his design made this place a defendable fortress.
Exhaustion dragged at him. He made it a point to stay in shape, but he wasn’t Superma
n. He hadn’t gotten much sleep last night before the storm had jarred him awake and the pistol shots pulled him out into the dark rain. For the past several hours he’d been pushing himself hard, so hard all he could do was thank God the cabin hadn’t been even a hundred yards farther, because he might have had trouble making that hundred yards.
He couldn’t rest yet, though. The next step was to get Angie up the damn ladder. Everything he needed to take care of her was on the upper level, and that was the safest place to be, anyway.
He stared at the ladder, debating with himself whether he should carry everything up in one trip, or leave the gear here and take Angie up unencumbered. The second way would make getting her up there easier, but then he had to think about the effort of making another trip.
When he thought about the possibility of dropping her, that made the choice obvious. Angie first, then the rest. He put the flashlight on a shelf, unslung both rifles and propped them against a stall. “I’m going to put you on your feet,” he explained, gripping her waist with both hands to shift her weight. “Foot, rather. Can you stand?”
There was a pause while she processed what he was saying, then she said, “I don’t know.”
Not what he wanted to hear, but honest. He lifted her off his shoulder and carefully let her slide down his body, and once he had her upright, close to the ladder, he kept one arm around her until she had her balance. She grabbed the ladder, leaning into it, and put all her weight on her left foot.
The lower level was dark with shadows, but enough light came through the two windows above that he could see she was trembling from head to foot. The hard rain had washed away a lot of the mud that had been covering her when he’d found her, but she still looked like hell, her face paper white in the dimness, her dark eyes huge and glassy and rimmed with the bruised look of utter fatigue. She stood there swaying and shaking, watching him without even a flicker of curiosity in her eyes, waiting for whatever he told her to do next.
